Iannone: “It was difficult for me to do anything more”

Andrea Iannone gives it his all but comes up short at the Shell Malaysia Motorcycle Grand Prix, which he will start in sixth.

During Friday practice Andrea Iannone had looked competitive on the Ducati GP15 but the Italian struggled during the Saturday sessions. An issue with his chain ended Iannone’s FP3 early and saw him down in 11th. Fortunately he had already secured a birth in Q2 due to his performance on the opening day. FP4 saw Iannone up in third and hopes were high for the Q2 session. Running the softer tyre Iannone produced a 2’00.244 on his first run, good enough for sixth on the grid. While the second row is in no way a bad starting position, Iannone was not satisfied as his GP15 was not turning well.

Work continues for tomorrow, although Iannone doesn’t expect any major changes as he feels he can be more competitive over race distance. The race start, as in Phillip Island, will be critical as Sepang boasts an incredibly tight first two corners. A poor start can easily see a rider get shut out and pushed out of podium contention.

Andrea Iannone: “I think that today it was difficult for me to do anything more. I tried to give my maximum, but I’m struggling to get the bike through the turns and so was not able to go any quicker. Obviously we are not happy, but now we must stay focused and continue working to understand the right direction to take in order to reduce our problems to a minimum or at least manage to quick-fix them. I don’t expect any big changes for tomorrow’s race, but all things considered I’m not in such a bad position. As for our race pace in FP4, after Dani and Marc there are Jorge and me, and then Vale, but we will have to see if and how much the situation will change with the race tyre.”